Talk:Love is Strange/@comment-34112521-20180523132732
Some very personal thoughts after finishing the Chloe-route (may be tl;dr. Also, mushy whining alert. Jump to "+++ end of mushy whining +++" if you want to skip this and directly go to the actual game discussion) Of course I had saved Chloe to play last. I knew why. It would get me all emotional again. Very emotional. And of course it did. DontnoD really did a good job on me. Just like when I played LiS, I needed more than a few Kleenex, and towards the end I gave up on it and just let the tears run down my cheeks. Beautiful. And sad. It's definitely over. Pricefield is gone and won't come back to me. Like ever. But why is it that I get so wrecked emotionally in every game I play as Max? I already had given this some serious thought when I had finished LiS and got some ideas, but it's only now that I know -- or at least I think I do. One reason is that I missed so much of this in my childhood, my youth and my adolescence. Or at all. I was sick until I was about eight, grew up in a dysfunctional emotionless family, and by 10 -- as I only learned about some 5-ish years ago, when I was a bit over 50 -- I already had developed full blown borderline and PTSD, causing... no, forcing me to be asocial and suffer from severe social anxiety. So I see myself somewhat mirrored in shy, self-described socially awkward, somewhat reclusive, good-hearted Max -- just without her ability to have strong, fulfilled emotional or romantic bonds. Fuck borderline! Basically, I want(ed) to be like her. On the other hand, I also always wanted a gf or partner who was totally like Max. Although I had my share of gf's, was married for almost 8 years and have an adult daugher, I never managed toget this. So there's kind of a dichotomy there: I want to be like her, but also want to have someone like her as gf. ''In conclusion: Max makes me feel like I'm a gay young woman in an old man's body. I've had this thought for some years now. Totally fuck it!'' +++ end of mushy whining +++ Now for the game itself: In the three other routes I had fun and distance, them being out of the world like a fun dating simulator. I noticed that the writers (at least the one who wrote the Rachel route) like me have their problems and dislikes with Rachel. I never liked her, even in LiS, and long before Eliot warns Chloe about her in BtS. In my opinion, she just took advantage of Chloe. Asshole Rachel ;-) The Chloe route bore some interesting differences: Already very early on Chloe teased Max as being gay, when she says that "Max probably takes all the girls there". I mean sure, they have been bff all life long, but when they separated they were 12 and 13, Chloe definitely wouldn't have recognized that. Neither would Max have known, being still very unsure about her sexuality at 18 and never having had a bf or gf or even a real kiss. I also noticed for the first time Max wore a rainbow bracelet. So can we actually assume she herself already was sure about it and even uses the bracelet as an open declarion of her orientation? Would be great, but also very un-Max-ish. Anyway, special congratulations to the writer of the Chloe route -- it fully met the expectations I had of a good Chloe story. Thank you!